How to Keep Up With a Rapidly Changing App Market

As technology keeps advancing, some of the biggest companies in the world push the envelope to bring consumers new features, better cameras, and enhanced smartphone designs.

If you want to become a mobile app developer you’re going to have to try to keep up. It’s no easy task, and here we’ll show you what you’re up against, and what you can do to tame the ever-changing beast that is mobile apps.

New Devices With New Capabilities

Each year Apple, Google, Samsung, Motorola, LG, add more all scramble to release a new version of their top-selling phones to spur sales and growth. With these phones comes new capabilities that make it a challenge to come up with an app to take advantage of those new features. At the same time it makes it necessary to update existing apps and keep them relevant to today’s consumers.

New Operating System Upgrades

iOS, the software that runs the iPhone, and the Android operating system that controls all Android phones have undergone several updates and upgrades over time. If you don’t update your app to play nice with these new versions it could get left behind.

Android is on its eighth version in as many years, and iOS has changed 10 times since 2008. This means that after you successfully launch your app and it reaches a level of success you’ll need to update it to prevent any problems while running on the new software.

Wearable Technology

If smartwatches replace smartphones as the Next Big Thing, it will require app developers to learn a new skill set in order to create fun and engaging apps that work best with a smartwatch. You’d need to learn WatchOS to create apps for the Apple Watch, or Android Wear to make apps for Android-based smartwatches.

Smartwatches might only be the hot thing for a short time, as wearables become smaller and smaller, fitting in seamlessly with out clothes and other accessories. Each time there’s a new incarnation of wearable technology, new apps will need to be there to meet the new demand.

Virtual and Augmented Reality

Virtual reality is destined to become a huge industry, and augmented reality promises to change the way we interact with the world, and each other. Because these are both emerging technologies there aren’t many companies making VR apps, which represents a huge opportunity if you can shift your business model to take advantage of all that VR can offer.

Even though the most obvious application for VR is games and entertainment, there will also be applications in the medical industry, travel, business, and almost every other industry you can think of. The same could be said for Augmented Reality, which provides relevant data based on what a user is looking at in the real world.

Staying One Step Ahead

Even though the mobile app industry is still going strong, you’ll want to look ahead to the future and try to predict what’s coming. Early adopters end up taking much of the initial market share, so if you can beat your competition to the punch you’ll reap the rewards financially.